| ® | The Russians Are Coming | 221 of the Russian Federation in 2000, he made no secret that his goal was to prevent the United States from obtaining what he termed “global hegemony.” His logic was clear. He judged the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 to be, as he put it, “a geopolitical disaster.” He argued that the breakup had provided the United States with the means to become the singular dominant power in the world. He sought to prevent that outcome by moving aggressively to redress this loss of Russian power. He upgraded Russia’s nuclear force, modernized Russia’s elite military units, and greatly strength- ened Russia’s relations with China. The last measure was essential because China was Russia’s principal ally in opposing the extension of American dominance. Yet there was still an immense gap between them and the United States in communications intelligence. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the NSA had continued to build up its technological capabilities, while Russia teetered on the edge of collapse in the early 1990s. But as previously mentioned, the NSA’‘s legal mandate had been limited by Congress to foreign interceptions (at least prior to 9/11). As a result, it was required to © separate out domestic from foreign surveillance, a massive process re) that not only was time-consuming but could generate dissidence within the ranks of American intelligence. It also could not legally use its surveillance machinery to monitor the telephones and Inter- net activities of the tens of thousands of civilian contractors who ran its computer networks—at least not unless the FBI began an inves- tigation into them. Here the Russian intelligence services had a clear advantage. They had a lawful mandate to intercept any and all domestic communica- tions. In fact, a compulsory surveillance system called by its Russian acronym SORM had been incorporated into Russian law in 1995. It requires the FSB and seven other Russian security agencies to monito